Introduction The harmonic minor is one of the three main source scales in music. This is a seven note minor scale with a b3, a b6 and a natural 7th. The related modes group from this scale offer quite a few interesting textures, sometimes overlooked by many jazz beginners. Here's a taste of what this group... Continue Reading →
Introduction The Circle of Fifths is one of the most powerful tools we half to represent our 12-tone system. By stacking perfect fifths you get all the notes in western music. Using the circle of fifths to show scales allows us to find very interesting properties of that scale, from determining key signatures, to finding... Continue Reading →
In this new series we will explore the Harmony and Voicings of Pat Metheny applied to the piano. These are intermediate to advanced piano lessons. So, join us and learn more about the harmonic techniques used by Metheny. One of the most iconic guitar player and composer of our time. https://youtu.be/pZ364c7cdN8 We are back with... Continue Reading →
The Universal Encyclopedia of Scales is a fully interactive PDF containing all 2048 scales in music, organized over the circle of fifths, with 2600+ pages of information. The encyclopedia includes chapters on scale theory, several master indexes by mode count and note count, source scales, symmetrical scales, and hexatonic bi-triadic scales. Each scale has its... Continue Reading →
Starting on version 7.8.8, Mapping Tonal Harmony Pro macOS now offers two incredible and unprecedented add-ons: Upper Structures & Target Notes These are two powerful features to study and practice tonal harmony. View Mapping Tonal Harmony’s webpage The new add-ones are also available in Mapping Tonal Harmony Pro for iOS (iPhone & iPad) View it... Continue Reading →
Here's the complete lesson in video format https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8NmmG08M-k In this series we are going to talk about Piano Voicings, specifically voicings that use upper structures. It’s said that the average piano player spends 2 to 3 hours daily, searching for cool voicings over different chords and harmonic progressions. Finding new voicings, cataloguing, memorizing and... Continue Reading →
I've been asked many times "Why do I need to learn and practice scales?" or "Why do I need to understand chords-scales and tonal harmony?" Some other people complain about the chord-scale theory, saying that they don't want to play scales, meaning they wish to play in the jazz vocabulary, licks, motives, playing rhythmically or... Continue Reading →
mDecks Music Blog 